Reflection from FIBEP 2019

Published: 28 Feb 2020

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Our CTO Mohan Doshi recently attended FIBEP World Media Intelligence Congress, an annual media monitoring event, held in Lima, Peru. FIBEP Congress is one of the largest events that brings together communications professionals worldwide to share best practices, industry developments and innovation. The theme for the event was exploring and expanding the media intelligence world. The three-day conference helped the Ninestars team gather insights and connect to the industry. We showcased PRANA, our flagship product for media monitoring, at the event. We caught up with Mohan soon after the conference and excepts from our conversation are provided below.

Did this year’s event meet your expectations? Why or why not?

I am a firm believer in attending events where our customers frequent. It is not just to get more customers, but these events give us a sense of belonging, helping us connect with one another, humanizing what would otherwise be just transactional. No amount of business transactions can replace a human touch. FIBEP helps me reconnect with my acquaintances and friends from the industry and also help gather insights that would help us offer personalized services to our customers. This year’s FIBEP was a small event with fewer people. But through my tech-talk presentation and panel discussion, I was able to drive home the point that innovation requires bold aspirations. Media Monitoring has invested heavily on content (with amazing results) but now it is time to invest in data engineering.

Tell us more about the tech talk.

The topic I chose was “Tapping data and analytics to innovate faster and at scale”. Data engineering has been gathering momentum across industries and it is important to focus on it. The content automation had its momentum for the past 15 years. Media monitoring organizations have invested heavily on software solutions to automate their processes. Today content automation is baked in and efficient. Social media and online content have however made archaic the older technologies used for content monitoring. The volume and streaming nature of such content need very different technologies to monitor and measure them. The need for information in real time to add certainty to decision-making is key. PRANA as a platform addresses the veracity, volume, velocity, variety and drives the momentum toward value.

What impact do you see FIBEP having on our immediate business goals?

In FIBEP 2017, we had unveiled ‘PRANA’ as a solution to all things data and this year, we presented an updated version of PRANA. PRANA is a modular data platform that makes it easy to analyze data in near real-time. I feel that media monitoring organizations are overwhelmed with non-stop stream of data, most of which is creating an information clutter. With PRANA, they can bring all relevant data under one data point, eradicating inefficiencies and improving processing capabilities which leads to better customer experiences. PRANA has evolved in the past year to provide a bouquet of services which are relevant to the industry. The use cases PRANA caters are well-formed. We see an immediate demand for organizations to subscribe to the platform as a whole or a set of services which integrate with their existing workflows.

What is Momentum Mindset and how PRANA will help organizations get into that mindset?

Momentum is the fuel that drives an organization toward its goals. Momentum allows us to evolve from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, helping us open ourselves to more opportunities. Organizations with legacy systems need an immediate process upgrade to cater to the demanding outcomes their customers are willing to engage in. PRANA can provide that upgrade in a short time and at an affordable budget. Organizations can focus on delivering the value their customers are willing to pay for instead of spending time on engineering solutions. Data being the paradigm of choice for their customers, PRANA can help organizations accelerate toward adopting this paradigm.

Which elements of the event did you like the most?

FIBEP discussed some key areas with a focus beyond media monitoring. There were topics on risk management, customer experience, World PR Report, deep fake AI and post truth, fact checking and communications-based product offerings to get attention from C-Suite. The city of Lima, its culture, heritage and the weather were memorable.